Multi-channel provisioning of public services - Department of ...

addition to the self-declaration form, procedures for central evaluation of ICT projects have been
initiated to prevent duplication of efforts. Separate procedures to evaluate the finance and budgeting of
suggested ICT efforts are also initiated. All these initiatives are maintained and overseen by DIFI.
3.1.2 Architectural support
There are three contributing types of initiatives within methods, guidelines and standards that stand
out in Norway. The first is the focus on competencies and cross-agency management collaboration.
This is achieved through establishing separate websites for procurement and project support for
managers. In addition to this, guidelines and support for planning and quality assurance for ICTprojects
will be established (DIFI), and guidelines for creating socio-economic analysis as a part of
project proposals is provided by the Agency for Financial Management (SSØ).
The second, is the centrally defined architectural principles that act as guidance under information
systems planning and development. The principles include service orientation, interoperability,
universal availability, security, openness, flexibility and scalability. DIFI is responsible for the
management of the principles and will develop models for adoption and compliance.
The third is the reference catalogue defining mandatory and suggested standards for data for
government ICT systems. First launched in 2007, the reference catalogue provides public bodies,
suppliers and other stakeholders with an overview of recommended and mandatory standards relevant
to ICT solutions in the public sector. It is decided by the government that the reference catalogue
should be used by all national agencies when planning new solutions. Work is in progress to enforce
regulations so that the reference catalogue additionally will apply for the regional agencies.
3.1.3 Infrastructure
The Norwegian government is set out to pursue a cohesive policy to ensure efficient re-use of public
information for increased value creation and the development of new services. Large- scale new
national ICT projects are to be assessed as to whether they can use the shared ICT components or
whether they may have or can develop components that can be made available to all. It is a
precondition that these assessments must not result in especially negative consequences for the project
and for innovative operating solutions etc. linked to it.
Already existing shared components include: Norwegian personal identification numbers (Treated as
privacy sensitive information and used as an integration point in core registers), electronic ID
component, the Altinn portal a common Internet portal for public reporting, norway.no/ norge.no as a
one-stop public service center for citizens and central citizen and business registries.
A new overarching ICT architecture for the public sector is being developed. Within this architecture
is the second-generation national information infrastructure for Norway (Altinn 2). Altinn 2 will also
contain a separate service development framework with a workspace for defining process flows
comprised by service building blocks, including data submission, messaging, information services,
link/authorization services, data distribution services and support for creating cross-silo compound
services. The Altinn platform additionally provides interfaces for automated data delivery from
businesses, acts as a centralized third party intermediary for data integration, provides multi-actor
process support and allows task allocation and task sharing. All Altinn services should be created to
allow web-service access as providing a web-based user interface is not required for all services.
For future service development, there are ambitions for examining how legal protection can be catered
for satisfactorily in relation to fully or partially automated decision-making solutions. The government
set out to review the division of labor between supervisory authorities, in processing of personal
privacy data, with in the interests of facilitating closer cooperation and coordination (FAD, 2006).
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